Epilogue
by denoodled
Summary: What if it wasn't just a game? [Alternative ending to the first book, one-shot.]


**A/N:** _I know it's rather fluff and so un-Katniss like but it's based on a dream I had after finishing the series. It was written about two years ago._

* * *

Peeta lets go of my hand. We're no longer in the Capitol, we're out of the arena and away from cameras' sight, we don't have to play anymore. We're standing in silence in front of the house - my new house, a house in the Victors' Village, one of many.

Peeta stops at the staircase, kicking the lowest step with his boot. He has his hands hidden in pockets and doesn't look at me so I slowly walk over the door, but when I put my hand on the doorhandle, I look up and see him turning away to leave.

"Peeta!" escapes from my mouth.

He stops slowly, all I can see is his hunched back; as if the weight of fail was pressing him— no. It's something different and I'm it's cause.

I run down to him from the porch, really fast, and tuck a little pink ball into his hand. These candies were the last dish in the train and were so delicious I couldn't help but take some with me. It's stupid but I decided the Capitol owes me at least that. Both of us. Every other kids that died in front of their eyes for entertainment.

He opens his fist, touches it with his finger, as if it was some rare insect, tosses and clenches his fingers again.

"I've got a gift," he says slowly, looking into my eyes, "so what now, a kiss?" He smiles mockingly and I feel blood rushing down from my face, and trembling fingers unknowingly clench into fists. But I can't blame him for that. That's how we've been playing with him, Haymitch and I, during the games. One kiss from Peeta was worth medicaments or food, depending on what I needed at the time.

He drops the candy at the ground but he doesn't step at it as I expected. He looks as if he was hesitating, thinking something out.

"Peeta," I whisper, almost breathless, taking as much from the last moment we have as I can. He raises his eyebrows, waiting... And then I realize I don't know what I want to say anymore, nor how to do this. "A kiss..." I mumble then, not even realising it.

"I hope at least you had some fun," he sighs. I don't hear anger in his voice, only sadness. "I didn't suppose— I did know you've got plenty of talents but I didn't expect you to be such a good actress."

He's smiling again, a sad, broken smile this time.

"And what if it's nothing you think it is?! If you know nothing! What if it wasn't just a game?" I ask accusingly, impudently staring at his neck because he's turned away from me again. "What if it never was a game?" I correct myself quickly, remembering our talk in the train.

"What?"

I take a deep breath. Then the second one, it doesn't help, though. And another one, and a few more.

"That," I say finally, so quiet even I can't hear myself. But Peeta obviously does; suddenly we're standing face to face again, he's so close I have to cast my eyes down because I can't find proper words. "I wasn't acting— didn't know... but not— now I know— I wasn't acting. I never was."

He literally drinks the words from my lips, not wanting to waste a single drop.

"And—"

"Yes?" Peeta murmurs. I sigh with relief, it seems I've been forgiven. Or at least I've got a chance to explain.

"And I—" I repeat.

Devious blue sparkles in his eyes tell me he knows perfectly well what I'm trying to say but he isn't going to make it any easier for me. But it's Peeta who's good at talking about feelings, Peeta is the boy with the bread, the darling of Ceasar Flickermann and Capitol itself! I'm just Katniss Everdeen. Just Katniss. I may be a girl on fire but that I can't do.

"Iiiii—" I moan and suddenly feel Peeta's warm fingers squeezing my sweaty hands. "We don't have to end up like Haymitch!" I quickly say the first thing that comes to my mind.

Automatically, we both look at the first from the rank of the Victors' Village houses. There is light at the first floor, it means Haymitch's probably drinking to celebrate our victory - or anything else. It's obvious he's spending this night with a bottle, just like he used to do since he's won the second Quarter Quell.

I don't want such life. I don't want to get married, I don't want to have children because I'm afraid, I'm so terrified their names would get into the crystall ball someday and another Effie Trinket would draw them, smiling - and I wouldn't be able to do anything, I wouldn't volunteer again.

But I want to get back to the previous life, as it was before the Games, I want to be that ordinary girl again, I want normal life, just for a while, as long as it's possible.

I want... I want the boy with the bread. That's why I entwine my fingers with his and say, "It doesn't have to end like that. Not for us— Not like that, not now, not here," I whisper frenetically. I feel a rush of hot when I add, "I want to try—"

"Yes?" Peeta insists when I stop again; I can almost feel laughter in his voice. He could decorate his feelings with words as beautifully as he decorates cakes in his parents' bakery.

"I want to live a normal life," I say.

"So do I," he replies, his face unable to read anything from.

"I— Do I really have to say it? I can't!" It irritates me. "But I would like just to try... live a normal life. So we, you and me, try to live like normal kids—"

"Haymitch!" Peeta shouts suddenly. It makes me forget what I was going to say.

"Could you do us a favour and go back to your jungle juice?" I snap. The shadow behind the curtain salutes in response and to me it seems Haymitch giggles, I can't hear it, though.

"I want it, too," Peeta says coolly. "So?"

"So—" I know other way I won't be able to say it. I bow and take the candy he's dropped just a few moments ago from the ground. I tuck it into his hand again. "Let's play a game," I suggest, squeezing his fingers harder. "You still remember the rules?"

"What rules?" asks Peeta, surprised.

"Oh, the rules of our game, silly," I tell him in a sweet voice and smile as if we were still watched by whole Panem. "You know what's the food price?"

Peeta's lips touching my own tell me he does. I'm kissing him again - or maybe it's him who's kissing me - but this kiss is so oddly different than the previous ones... it's real. Now we're standing here, all alone, in casting twilight, no one's looking at us - maybe except Haymitch, but I think he's too drunk to see even a glass in front of him.

I giggle so Peeta steps back, shocked a bit, but I pull him to me again. This time I'm not pretending. I know I want it. I think I wanted it in the cave already. But it wasn't our kiss by then - it was the kiss of the Capitol, whole Panem. This one is only mine and Peeta's.

My first kiss.

I don't care if we're going to say goodbye. We'll go back home and when another reaping time comes, we'll be worrying about our siblings. My little duck... Even my victory won't save her if Effie draws Primrose Everdeen's name again.

Next year, another twentry three tributes are going to die and we, the victors, will have to watch their struggling and try to get the sponsors for two of them, another boy and another girl from District Twelve. We'll be the mentors. It's not something to be proud of.

I shake my head, I don't want to think about it right now.

We live in Panem. Here, a human life means less than some fun.

_"I won't be just a piece in their game,"_ Peeta told me once, on the roof in Capitol. _"I wanna die still being me, Katniss..."_

We're the victors of Hunger Games - _deathly_ games - but we both know that actually, we've lost. Although we're out of arena now, the game's still on, it's eternal. But we don't have to be passive.

Just like then, when we proved it by putting berries in our mouth, now we can demonstrate it in the easiest possible way.

Loving.

So I let myself drown in Peeta's warm lips, though I hear the door's creaking. Prim gasps quietly and Buttercup meows. I breath in familiar, bread and soapy smell, enjoying being so close to him. That moment constrast so starkly with the previous terror and the pain of the arena. Right now, I don't care about anything else. That moment is mine.

It doesn't matter what tommorow will bring.

Now we can pretend that's never happened and will never happen again; that we're just Katniss and Peeta, two teenagers in love, not the victors; that we live in another world, a world without president Snow and something such as the Hunger Games - and be happy by this naïve, volatile happiness.

I've got my boy with the bread and I'm not going to lose him.


End file.
